The Anti-Resolution Revolution
Resolving against resolutions through books, beer, and the Birds.
If you’re like me, the New Year hits you not like a car but like a double decker bus driven by a blind drunk. Every year, the new number at the end of the calendar sneaks up on me, stalking closer and closer each December night until it’s too late. Only a couple months ago, I dated a document 2021. How am I supposed to grapple with 2024?
January 1 of each year smacks me square in the cheek, reminding me of all the things I need to do, and of all the failed resolutions of years past.
In 2020, for example, I meant to find a new dentist. Four years and two insurance plans later, I’m ashamed to admit I’m still searching. In 2022, I failed to publish a short story, and in 2023 I never finished writing the next great American novel.
Even now, I’m publishing my New Year’s newsletter not on January 1st but on January 31st — a month late and a holiday short.
My resolutions are out of control. I can’t tell if my ambitions are unattainably high or if I’m simply a chronic underachiever. Nowhere is this more evident than in my annual reading target, on which I’ve come up short every single year.
After reading almost 24 books in 2022, I made it my objective to read 36 in 2023, or roughly 1 more per month. Upon finishing the 560-page Midnight’s Children at November’s close, I rushed through a shorter novel about a Korean hotel, Winter in Sokcho, and burned through Douglas Stuart’s prolific Shuggie Bain, but still came up short by 9 books.
It was while reading on my parents’ couch in Florida, some time during that blur between Christmas and New Year’s, lamenting about unmet goals in 2023, that I received a Substack notification on this very topic. A sarcastic, profane, and tattoo-sleeved minister, Nadia Bolz-Weber’s writing has comforted and bolstered me for over 10 years now.
But Mike, you say. You’re not religious. You don’t even attend church!
To which I respond, I’m not at Lincoln Financial Field every Sunday, but I’m still an Eagles fan, aren’t I?
I detest preaching and I hate hymns and I loathe “group prayer,” and I can’t stand sitting then standing then sitting then kneeling and then standing again, and the only reason I survived 13 years of Quaker schooling is because Quaker Meeting is like a nice mid-day, open-eyed nap that carries with it the risk of occassional epiphany.
Which is eerily close to how I’d describe hikes in the woods or really good books or spontaneous trips to dive bars. But perhaps that’s one of the reasons why I begrudgingly love Quakerism, and Christianity, and capital R Religion.
In her New Year’s Blessing (I know, I know, just trust me) Bolz-Weber wrote:
May you remember that there is no resolution that, if kept, will make you more worthy of love.
May you just skip the part where you resolve to be better do better and look better this time.
Instead, may you give yourself the gift of really, really low expectations. Not out of resignation, but out of generosity.
By the time each New Year’s Eve rolls around, there are always victories to celebrate when the champagne is poured, even if they rarely resemble the visions I prescribed myself the previous year.
Sure, I failed to find a dentist in 2020, but I did find a dermatologist, which ended up saving my life. Although I failed to publish fiction in 2022, Elephant Graveyard quadrupled its readership, and I logged thousands of nonfiction views.
And though Shuggie Bain, when I finally finished it, was only my 27th book of 2023, that still exceeded my old goal of 24. I was just a year late.
So, yes, I don’t have a six pack, and I haven’t finished my novel. And, yeah, in 2023 I drank too much beer, and I eschewed the spinach in my fridge for the Chinese food down the street.
But I did go to the gym more often, and I did buy the spinach in the first place, and I did at least start the novel. I drafted 175 pages of it, God damnit!
May you expect so little of yourself that you can be super proud of the smallest of accomplishments.
May you expect to get so little out of 2024 that you can celebrate every single thing it offers you, however small.
So, I wish you a Happy as possible New Year.
It’s with that in mind — the happy-as-possible — that I set no hard and fast resolutions this year. It’s with microscopic expectations that I abandon the letter grade system when thinking of my goals, and instead embrace a pass/fail mentality for this new year.
When December 2024 rolls around, I will sit down with my apple pie and my Yuengling and think to myself: Did I make it through the year in one piece?
Was there love and laughter from friends and family?
Did the Eagles clinch the NFC East? (Kidding.)
So, fuck the book count and the bathroom scale. If I eat too much garbage food, may it be in good company. If I drink too much beer, may I be toasting to the smallest accomplishments.
And if I don’t make it to the dentist — well, OK, I should probably go to the dentist.
But the point remains: I’m endeavoring not to view my goals through the barrel of a shotgun, but instead like invitations on the calendar — friendly appointments in the distance, all worthy of excitement, but which I may cancel on, if something better comes up.
And the first goal on my list? Buy a new calendar.
I told you those dates sneak up on me.
Elephant Graveyard’s Top 5 Reads of 2023
Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner (honorary Philly author)
Shouts out to…
Jamie & Brandon, for the awesome New Year’s Eve wedding
hey this is good who are you
Michael you never cease to amaze me!! You are so inspirational, funny, kind and caring a diamond rock of optimism for others and my Maddee. Your writing is fabulous, we all relate☺️ I'm excited for your New Year to come and lowering the bar of expectations, so when the everyday wonderful things happen it is pure joy and happiness. Speaking of procrastination I gotta help you re-fix that cardboard cat wall, it ruins the beauty of your lovely sunset garden😅